About Long Island Business News

History

In 1953 newspaper reporter Arthur Hug and the husband-and-wife team of Peg and John Whitmore launched Long Island Commercial Review, the original name of Long Island Business News.

The newspaper was founded in the basement of the Whitmore’s Freeport home, according to Hug.

Hug had been a reporter at the Nassau Daily Review Star, the leading newspaper on Long Island in the 1930s. Several years later, he accepted an offer to write for Newsday. Hug also served as a copy editor for World Telegram & Sun shortly before it folded.

The Hug and Whitmore team published the first paper on Sept. 14. An issue sold for 15 cents, and a yearly subscription cost $5. The Commercial Review was known as the official publication of the Long Island Association but it always remained independent.

In 1958, Paul Townsend, then the development director of North Shore Hospital, bought Long Island Commercial Review from Hug. Townsend paid $5,000 for the weekly.

In 1960, Townsend, in this paper’s editorial page, fought to keeping Mitchel Field Airport as a major Nassau County transportation hub. In one corner was Townsend and the business community. In the other corner was Robert Moses, the State Park Commission president, and Alicia Patterson, publisher of Newsday.

Townsend lost the Mitchel Field fight, but still gained something, Townsend said. “Losing the fight mobilized the businessmen. It got them feeling that they had to mobilize if they weren’t going to keep losing fights,” he told LIBN.

Commercial Review did win the early 1960s fight to preserve Fire Island by helping it gain National Seashore status.

The paper organized and gained wide support. Grumman supplied a plane so Townsend could travel to Washington and speak before Congress. Eventually, even Newsday switched sides.

In the late 1960s, Townsend organized a campaign to expand Long Island MacArthur Airport in Islip.

Townsend organized weekly breakfast groups, including Long Island Forum for Technology, Long Island MidSuffolk Business Action and Eastern Long Island Executives, all of which are still in existence.

For about one year, during the mid-1960s, the paper published twice a week, and then became a daily. But there wasn’t enough advertising or business news to make the front page newsworthy.

In 1980, the paper went through bankruptcy but later recovered. Tod Gittleson, an entrepreneur and donor to Hofstra University, advanced the paper’s payroll and taught Terry Townsend, Townsend’s wife and the paper’s publisher at the time, how to manage the business efficiently. And in 1987 the Townsends changed the name of the paper to Long Island Business News.

The Townsends sold the paper in 1998 to Dolan Media Inc., which put the publisher of its Oklahoma City Journal Record, John Kominicki, in charge.

Kominicki served as publisher until October 2013, leading the paper as Dolan Media went public and rebranded to The Dolan Company.

In December 2013, Scott Schoen, a seasoned veteran of newspaper sales and marketing, was named publisher. Schoen has been audience development manager for The Dolan Company since 2011, directing, developing and coaching management teams at seven of company’s newspapers. That includes LIBN, where he was based and served as director of circulation marketing from 2007 to 2011.

Today’s mission

Long Island Business News is Long Island’s only publication devoted to local commerce and has been the premier source of news and data on business, economic trends and the region’s robust entrepreneurial sector for more than 60 years.

As the area’s No. 1 source for news on Long Island’s 149,000-plus businesses, we pay special attention to the region’s leading sectors: education, health care, high-tech, financial and professional services, and commercial real estate and development.

In addition to our 52 weekly editions, we publish a full line of annual publications, including the Book of Lists, the Tech Island Directory, the Meeting Planner’s Guide and Doing Business on Long Island.